The Noise of God

I'd like a more predictable God. What I mean by that is that I want
a more controllable
God. What I mean is, I wish magic worked.

There are times when I have heard the noise of God, and I use that word
somewhat facetiously, but if we are to talk about the silence of God, that
presumes a noise
of God. I've probably written more about this noise than I've spoken of it
because it's a
little embarrassing. It too easily invites rolling eyes or jokes about
Charleton Heston's
voice.

But I have heard the noise of God. Not exactly a voice, not really a sound
even,
but some stirring of God that, in my experience, mostly says some variation
of, "I am here.
I want you. Follow me." This isn't the only message I've received, but for
the purposes of
this essay, it is enough. These noises have come to me in intentional
prayer or meditation
and they have come in worship and they have come in unexpected conversation
that I start
but gets away from me and before I know it, God is revealed once again.

I like it. I like the noise of God. It comforts me and gives me hope for
another day
and it makes me feel special. It makes me feel so special, that I want it a
lot. This noise of
God is a little like a drug and once you have it, it's hard to do without.
I long for it and in
the longing, I pant with the psalmist, like a deer desiring a running brook.

But I want magic to work and God is not magic. I suspect that I don't hear
God's
noise more often than I do precisely because I need to be reminded quite
regularly that the
hearing isn't the only aspect of God. My feeling special isn't the only
reason God stirs.
Indeed, it's very easy to confuse the religious experience itself for God
and the desire to
hear the noise becomes an idol, the same as any golden calf. The feeling,
the ecstasy, is
more the goal than true communion with God and, in my experience which is
all I have,
God goes mute so that I seek not the noise, but the God of all creation.
All my exercises
to recreate the exact circumstances of previous religious experience becomes
so much
clanging cymbal because I am, in truth, seeking my own ecstasy, my own good
feeling and
have no love in the exercises.

This is not the only reason God keeps silent to me. We once had a fight
and God
withdrew. I know this sounds silly, but it wasn't at the time. Harsh words
were spoken. I
wanted something done (not even for myself!) and I was testing God. I
wanted to see a
miracle, I wanted to see some real proof of God caring, of having the power
we're told
God has. I railed that this wasn't even for me, it was for someone I never
met, someone I
wasn't likely to meet, just someone who was important to someone I loved and
I fought
with God, telling God how unselfish I was being! "Okay," I said angrily,
tearfully, "so you let
my mother die, so I did not receive the love of the man I wanted, so I
didn't have a career
I wanted -- just throw me a bone to let me know that you are out there and
active and not
just a fairy-tale for children and stupid adults." God granted my wish (and
I use that word
precisely because I was treating God like a genie and it was selfish even if
it was for the
healing of someone I did not know) but there was a time that I felt God
withdraw, an
absence I recognized because I had known the Presence in my mother's death,
in my
unrequited love, in my vocation. (I pause to acknowledge that there is
arrogance in this
story, presuming that God healed this stranger because I railed as I did. I
really don't
know this. All I know is that I fought with God, God withdrew, and this
stranger is alive,
turned from a point of certain death. I acknowledge that there were many
others praying
for her and I have no real reason to believe that my drama played any part
in it at all.)

If only God were magic and commandable like a genie, but no, our God is not so
mindless, so weak.

There is a limit, I think, to what God can do in the world and I can't tell
if that limit
is out of God's choice or the powers and principalities of this world having
the sway they
now enjoy. I do not pretend to know the whole answer to all this. How
could I? But the
silence of God isn't only a sign of God as idol-smasher nor of a withdrawing
God who has
heard all that could be stood for the moment. There is, at a very unlikely
minimum, one
more place where I have experienced the silence of God, mostly because this
noise of God
was so soft, so low, it was not immediately discernible.

I alluded to it above. Sometimes we mistake the silence of God as an absence,
which it is not.
Sometimes we hear silence when the Spirit is most fully present, interceding in
sighs too deep for words.
In this soft, subtle noise of God, there is a comfort and release no genie
could ever
give. Why I more often refuse to tune my ear to this noise and demand
magic, I do not
know and can only repent when I become aware of my demands, and ask for ears
to hear.